Banjo Skins

UPDATE! I've decided to finish this project. It's a bit less thorough than I originally intended, but I am content with the final state of it. See the finished project HERE.

(I've gone ahead and left the post below untouched for those who are interested in seeing it)

Banjo Kazooie Skins Project!

NOTE! This is a WIP, and these may or may not be the final versions of the skins! Also, Majority of these are custom sprites unless noted otherwise, so please give me feedback! Also, if you don't know what some of these things are, click the red text for a trip to the Banjo wiki. **This post has been updated with all of the skins thus far.**

- Spineys are "Baddies" and Bowser is Gruntilda. These sprites are based off (read: edited versions) of the Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts mini-game "Hero Klungo Saves teh World". (Note that they only have two frames of animation each in the mini-game, it's not because I'm lazy!)

Hero Klungo:

Thisss isss Hero Klungo from Hero Klungo Saves teh World! If you watch this video, you can see what it was all about. It was a cute game that was mostly just for laughs. The game was "made by Klungo" from the Banjo Kazooie series, and features a protagonist with only two sprite animations. Because of that, I tried to stay as true to that as possible, but I made some exceptions.

One such exception came in the form of baby Klungo! Isn't he cute! There are also some other custom sprites but I tried to keep it to a minimum, and make them fit as close as possible to the mini-game.

Banjo and Kazooie:

Bass Seemed like the perfect choice for skinning Banjo, since it allowed me to use Kazooie and her Egg Firing. I made the different powers things from the game. Blue, fire, grenade, ice, and golden eggs make an appearance, as well as a magical Stop n' Swap egg. Bottles teaches you the beak barge, the Glowbo gives you super strength, and the Cheato page gives you golden eggs. I got a little bit silly with the pharaoh shot, making the mumbo skull give you powerss that summon the bee transformation, the t-rex transformation, and the washing machine transformation.

Also, the Treble Boost is Kazooie flying, if you couldn't figure that out yourself

I can't take full credit for this though. This picture is what inspired the look of banjo, but there was only one sprite of him so it took a lot of work to make this. I'd say Banjo's face is about the only thing from that sprite that I really used, but I still have to give the creator of that image some credit.

Hero Klungo Saves Teh World Theme:

This is my first theme and it's looped background. This is pretty basic. Check under the Klungo skin for a video of it in action. Had to edit the grass a bit, but it looks pretty much the same.

Since Treasure Trove Cove has to be my favorite 3-D platformer level of all time, it gets the special treatment. I made themes based on it for both underwater levels and bridge levels. Backgrounds are still in the process of being made, but will include more than just TTC stuff.

Wow . . . you fit so many elements of Banjo-Kazooie into this, and in ways that really fit! I'm impressed!
Hmm . . . I wonder if there's an 8-bit version of the Spiral Mountain theme around somewhere . . .

Wow . . . you fit so many elements of Banjo-Kazooie into this, and in ways that really fit! I'm impressed!
Hmm . . . I wonder if there's an 8-bit version of the Spiral Mountain theme around somewhere . . .

Click to expand...

There are some 8-bit tunes in Klungo Saves Teh World. It was a minigame from Nuts and Bolts. I plan on making a Klungo skin for Mario and the Gruntilda from that game over Bowser.

Again, most of these are Custom Sprites that I've been working on for a couple days, so I'd appreciate feedback! Only problem I can think of is that while they functionally relate to the enemies I've changed them to, Snippets don't look like they can be jumped on and Bigbutts do. I may have to switch the two of those. Otherwise, I'm happy with how they turned out.

As for Glitter Gulch, I'm not sure what my plans are for that yet. The project in general actually. All that's left for the project is the themes, and I'm not quite sure what level of detail I want to put into them. I've taken wuite a long break from the project, and I'm not sure when exactly I'll return to it, but I know it's one that I will eventually finish once I feel motivated to start up work on it again.

Regardless of sprite layering, the colors themselves aren't from the 8-bit pallet. Maybe the ones on Banjo himself (those were inspired from someone else's sprite), but there's a lot from these skins that I copied colors straight from Banjo Kazooie (the game) itself. This project wasn't so much to make it 8-bit so much as to just have sprites of some form for the game.

Are you talking about the background for Glitter Gulch or the theme itself? I plan to leave the theme the way it is, because it accurately represents the level, but I was already considering changing the background.

This is what Glitter Gulch looks like. I appreciate your advice, but I think I'm going to leave the theme as is, because it's the most accurate representation of the level itself. I really don't think it's going to clash as much as you think it will with Banjo, especially considering the SNES Mario 1 graphics don't clash too much with the NES characters in Crossover. I do however still plan on changing the background for it, but I'm not sure how yet.

Besides, while the Glitter Gulch theme is SNES graphics, the Treasure Trove Cove theme is based directly off of the textures from Banjo Kazooie (an N64 game). I shrunk them down to fit essentially.

Also, the reason this theme looks better than the Hero Klungo Savesss teh World theme is on purpose, since it's based off of a mini game in the xbox 360 game.

Well, yes, I know why it's better than the Klungo theme. It's just way higher-res than the Banjo sprites, which is presumably the intended character to use on the theme. Does Banjo not look out of place here to you?

Well, yes, I know why it's better than the Klungo theme. It's just way higher-res than the Banjo sprites, which is presumably the intended character to use on the theme. Does Banjo not look out of place here to you?

Not personally lol. Metroid's levels looked more detailed than that does (again, with the exception of the background). Even Treasure Trove Cove looks more detailed than that does.

Actually, I'm starting to like my background again, the height that you have it at looks awesome.

If anything, you've just made me want to shade the lamp and tracks in the background. Heck, just talking about the skin is actually making me feel like coming back to it! Maybe after the metroid and kirby skins I'm working/planning on.